This black and white copy of William Turner's prisoner identification mugshot was made at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in 1985 from Thomas Nevin's original sepia print, and placed online at the QVMAG in the early 2000s. The original 1870s print of the b&w copy was exhibited at the AGNSW in 1976 (listed on page 27 in the Exhibition Catalogue). The curator chose this one (and another two photographs) possibly because the full frontal pose and the frank stare captured more of the prisoner's "personality" than the conventional pose where the sitter's sightlines were deflected either left or right, the pose typical of Nevin's commercial studio practice and evident in the more than 200 (two hundred) prisoner cdvs held in the Beattie collection at the QVMAG. In addition, this print was possibly chosen because it had escaped the rebranding on the versos with the inscription "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" for Beattie's tourism trade of the 1900s and for the 1938 QVMAG exhibition which commemorated his death and bequest to the people of Launceston. A year after the 1976 AGNSW Centenary Exhibition, in 1977, many more of these "convict portraits" by T. J. Nevin from the Beattie collection were exhibited at the QVMAG, curated by John McPhee.

Remanded.-William Turner, Henry Townsend, and Thomas Morgan were brought up on remand, charged with feloniously shooting, at Swanton, Constable Wells, with intent to kill and murder him.
Upon the application of Mr. Sub - Inspector Weale the prisoners were further remanded until to-morrow (this day) when the evidence against them will be adduced.

1873: Turner discharged from H. M. Gaol with FP

Prisoner William Turner from Bristol. sentenced to 10 years for housebreaking and stealing was transported to VDL per the Lord Goderich, arrivingon 18 November 1841 as an 18 year old. He was then sentenced at the Hobart Supreme Court on 6th December 1859 to life imprisonment for "shooting with intent etc". He was received at the Municipal Police Office, Town Hall from the Port Arthur prison and discharged in the week ending 4th June 1873, Free with Pardon (abbreviated as FP in the police gazette record above).

1878: Turner convicted of larceny from a tin mining site
William Turner may have committed further offences using aliases between his discharge in 1873 and his conviction in 1878 , as his name does not appear against any further convictions in the Tasmanian police gazettes until 1878. While working as a sawyer in the Scottsdale and Ringarooma area of northern Tasmania in 1878, Turner was convicted for the theft of a calico tent and fly from the Briseis Tin Mining Company, Cascade River.

Page 152, Tasmania Reports of Crime. 20 September 1878.
William Turner was suspected of theft of a calico tent and fly.

Above: Two notices published in the Tasmanian police gazettes issues of 6th and 20th September 1878 concerning thefts of four meershaum pipes and a calico tent and fly by William Turner.

Above: William Turner, conviction of larceny published 26 October 1878Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police, Gov't printer.

During the week of 26th October 1878, William Turner, sawyer, 57 years old, 5ft 8½ inches tall, and Free by Servitude (FS) was convicted of larceny and sentenced to 6 months. His prior conviction - a life sentence in 1859 for shooting with intent from which he was discharged free with a pardon in 1873 - was not recorded. On incarceration at the Hobart Gaol in October 1878 and discharge from the Mayor's Court at the Hobart Town Hall in March 1879, T. J. Nevin photographed William Turner in full frontal pose for police and prison records.

Exhibitions 1976 & 1977
An archivist in the early 1900s, using the police gazette record, inscribed on the verso "FS" below the prisoner's name, William Turner, and the ship, Lord Goderich. A more recent inscription in a different hand - (Boys Ship) referring to the Lord Goderich and the date of his arrival in VDL (18/11/1841) - was probably added for the 1976 Centenary Exhibition of the Art Gallery of NSW and/or the 1977 QVMAG Exhibition of more than seventy "convict portraits" - i.e. mugshots of Tasmanian prisoners taken in the 1870s by Thomas J. Nevin - curated by John McPhee.

Paragraph on T. J. Nevin and his photographs of "still-living transported convicts", p. 41 of the Exhibition Catalogue for Australian art in the 1870s : an exhibition to mark the centenary of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney by Daniel Thomas 1976.

TRANSCRIPT

T. J. NEVIN
A Hobart photographer who in 1874 made a set of over 40 photographs of still-living transported convicts. They are included as an example of the strong interest in Australian history which is characteristic of the 1870s. These small photographs are also examples of the standard "Carte-de-visite" size used for almost all portraits in the 185s and 1860s, but going out of favour after 1870 for the larger "Cabinet" size , 4½ x 6½ inches. After 1875 "Panels". 8½ x 6½ inches also became common for family groups. Carte-de-visite and Cabinets of royalty, actresses, bishops, convicts and other celebrities were widely available and were collected in albums as well as portraits of one's own family.

The QVMAG Exhibition 1977: "The work of T. J. Nevin..."Source: the Mercury, March 3rd, 1977

TRANSCRIPT

Convict photos at Launceston
Historic photographs showing convicts at Port Arthur in 1874 will be exhibited at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery at Launceston from tomorrow to May 2.
The work of T. J. Nevin, the photos are being shown at Launceston for the first time.
Many of the men shown in the pictures had been transported to Port Arthur as young boys 40 years earlier.
The curator of fine art at the museum, Mr. John McPhee, said yesterday that the photos had "a quality far beyond that of records".
"Just once rascally, occasionally noble always pathetic, these photographs are among the most moving and powerful images of the human condition," he said.

William Turner, sentenced to 10 years for housebreaking and stealing was transported to VDL per the Lord Goderich, arriving on 18 November 1841 as an 18 year old. This record gives more detail about further offences until 1853.

Local Hobart publishers produced these two books in 2016 which included photographs directly related to the working life of photographer Thomas J. Nevin during the 1870s as both government contractor and civil servant with the Hobart City Corporation.

Top: page 199 of Enterprise, risk and ruin : the stage-coach and the development of Van Diemen's Land and Tasmania which features a photograph taken by Thomas J. Nevin of Samuel Page's Royal Mail Coach.

Bottom: page 92 of Municipal magnificence : the Hobart Town Hall 1866-2016 which features a photograph of the Keeper of the Town Hall, Thomas J. Nevin standing astride the front steps on Macquarie St. ca. 1880.

Chapter 8 of this very informative book covers the history of Royal Mail coach operator Samuel Page, and on page 179 mentions the bizarre coincidence of another man by the name of Samuel Page who operated coaches in the Huon in the same time frame.

THE PAINTED PHOTOGRAPH
This photograph may not be the only one taken by T. J. Nevin of Samuel Page's coach line, as earlier researchers in the 1980s noted that several trade advertisements by Nevin were extant in public collections. Strictly speaking, this was taken for government services rather than as an advertisement for Burdon's or Page's business interests.The verso notes suggest that either the untouched original was held at the property called "Entally" or that it is a copy of the same photo held at Entally which had been altered to eliminate the figure of Tom Davis. The area to the viewer's right of the coach bears clear evidence of a man's figure painted over. Tom Davis was employed at Burdon's in Argyle Street as a coach painter.

Above: this is the original photograph by T.J. Nevin with the figure of Tom Davis and Burdon's company name painted out (QMAG Collection Ref: 1987_P_0220). Tom Davis was a coach painter. The verso bears T. J. Nevin's Royal Arms insignia stamp used for government commissions, in this instance for the Royal Mail coach.

Detail: "S. PAGE" above door

Verso: Nevin's stamp printed with the Royal Arms insignia is faintly visible. The handwritten inscription on the reverse reads:

"From same photo held at Entally/ painted out background/ Burdons Coach Factory/ Man on r.h.s. of photo Tom Davis (has been painted out)/ 1872/ A.B. McKellar 328 Liverpool St/ coach body maker employed at Burdon and son when this coach was built"

Below is the original photo by T.J. Nevin with the figure of Tom Davis and Burdon's company name visible (TMAG Collection Ref: Q1988.77.480). The photo was taken in 1872, the date of the coach's manufacture by A. B. McKellar when the finishing touches were applied by Tom Davis, photographed here in shirt sleeves, standing proudly next to his fine calligraphic design work at right of image.

The top photograph may have been modified to omit Tom Davis' figure in order to sell the coach in 1880. A Brougham, similar to this one photographed by T. J. Nevin, was offered for sale at Burdon's per this advertisement in the Mercury of 2-19 November, 1880:

FOR SALE AT J. BURDON & SON'S COACH MANU-FACTORY,
No. 16, Argyle-street,
A Superior London-built DOUBLE-SEATED BROUGHAM CHARIOT, in good condition; also, a WAGGONETTE, a Whitechapel Cart,
and a new Chaise Cart.
November 2,1880.

PRISONERS CONVEYED on PAGE'S Coach
Page's coach line conveyed prisoners in irons, accompanied by constables such as Constable John Nevin, Thomas Nevin's brother and photographic assistant, from Launceston and regional lock-ups to the Hobart Gaol.

This notice about the Gregsons appeared in The Mercury, 19th February 1874

TRANSCRIPT

"By Page's coach yesterday morning, three prisoners were brought down from Launceston in irons, under the charge of Superintendent Tinmins and Sub-inspector Clements, of the Hamilton Police. Two of the prisoners, named Gregson, absconded from this city [i.e. Hobart] some seven or eight weeks ago, and made their way through the back country to their sister's residence in Launceston, where they were arrested. The other one, Mitchell, is known by several names. He absconded from the Launceston gaol, and having been arrested in the country, has now been removed, and with the Gregsons, placed in the gaol here."

Thomas J. Nevin at the Hobart Town Hall
Commercial photograph and government contractor Thomas J. Nevin was appointed above 23 other applicants to the position of Keeper at the Hobart Town Hall in 1875. Prior to this full-time position in the civil service, he held contracts with the Colonial Government's Land and Survey Department and Prisons Department on the recommendation of his family solicitor, the Hon. W. R. Giblin, Attorney General and Tasmanian Premier. From January 1876 to December 1880, photographer Thomas J. Nevin was both Hall Keeper and Office Keeper for the Mayor's Court (Mercury 1st January1878) and the Municipal Police Office, each housed under the one roof at the Hobart Town Hall with cells in the basement. His duties ranged from supervising inebriated constables on night watch, making sure the chimneys were swept, maintaining the grounds and watering the trees out front to preparing the Hall for exhibitions, lectures and concerts, and for keeping police photographic records taken by him of prisoners at the Mayor's Court and MPO current with those taken at the Hobart Gaol, mostly with his brother Constable John Nevin.

Omitted too is any indication among the multitude of plans and architectural designs of the whereabouts of the Keeper's residence. Thomas J. Nevin, his wife Elizabeth Rachel Nevin and their two children born before 1875 - known to descendants as May and Sonny - arrived there at the Hobart Town Hall as their new home in 1876, and by 1880, three more children had been born there, two of whom survived to adulthood - William John and George Ernest Nevin - and one who lived less than four months, Sydney John Nevin. These five children with their parents Thomas and Elizabeth Nevin were housed at the Hobart Town Hall between early 1876 and late 1880, a fact mentioned in the police report regarding Nevin's alleged involvement with the appearance of a "ghost" frightening the girls of Hobart Town in 1880. Two more were born after 1880 when Thomas Nevin resumed photographic practice at his New Town studio.

Children of Thomas James Nevin and Elizabeth Rachel Nevin nee Day

May (Mary Elizabeth Florence) (19 May 1872 - 4th June 1955)

Thomas James ("Sonny") Nevin jnr (16 April 1874 -17 January 1948)

Sydney John Nevin (26 October 1876 - 28 January 1877)

William John Nevin (14 March 1878 - 28 28 October 1927)

George Ernest Nevin (2 April 1880 - 30 July 1957)

Minnie (Mary Ann) Nevin (11 November 1884 - 14 September 1974)

Albert Edward Nevin (2 May 1888 - 3 November 1955)

THE MAYOR'S COURT & BASEMENT CELLS
A very questionable omission in this book is information from authentic historic sources regarding the presence of the police and their operations in the Hobart Town Hall during the 1870s, the years of Thomas Nevin's residency as Office and Hall Keeper. The Hobart Municipal Police Office was housed on the right-hand side as the visitor enters the building from the Macquarie Street entrance, and the Mayor's Court was housed on the left hand-side down the corridor past the office of the present Keeper.

Thomas J. Nevin was paid £78 for the year 1879 as Town Hall Keeper. He received an allowance for the residence - "30 shillings per week with free quarters, fuel and light" (Mercury, 29 December 1875). He was also paid out of the City Surveyor's Department to meet photographic contracts held since 1872 to provide visual documentation for changes in landscapes (eg. the Glenorchy landslip, the waterworks, rock formations on Mt. Wellington etc); for urban development within streetscapes; and for portraiture of HCC employees and families (eg. Constable McVilly's children). From the Police Fund he was paid for the provision of prisoner identification mugshots and warrants as bailiff to detectives (e.g. Detective Dorsett), out of the costs of Printing, Stationery etc at the Municipal Police Office housed within the Town Hall. During the visit of Canadian renegade priest Charles Chiniquy in 1879 he was also paid for service as a Special Constable to the HCC.

Information such as this which is found in the day to day memos and accounts of the HCC is missing from the research summoned by Freeman et al, relying as they have done on a "sober assessment" from the University of Tasmania's History Department staff member Stefan Petrow, whose work on the history of the police in Tasmania to date appears to be both piecemeal and lightweight despite his singular claim to the niche. Petrow's apparent acquiescence to the fantasy about prison commandant A. H. Boyd as THE photographer of prisoners peddled by his "student" - creepy, crude and uncouth Julia Clark in her ridiculous fantasy fake "thesis" (2015) - evinces a lazy complacency regarding Clark's fraudulent use of these weblogs and her abuse directed at Thomas Nevin and his descendants. It's a foolish decision which has led to a demand for his resignation and the revocation of the degree awarded to Clark in 2016.

The police were very much a presence at the Town Hall until 1888 (e.g. Centralisation of the Police, Mercury, 19 July 1888). Prisoners were detained in cells in the basement for a number of very obvious reasons: while awaiting arraignment, bail and sentencing at the Supreme Court for a serious crime, or appearance in the Magistrate's Court for misdemeanours with a fine. Discharges were administered through the Mayor's Court with a Ticket of Leave and other conditions. Some were kept in the cells for transfer to and from the Watch House located in the old Guard House opposite Franklin Square (since demolished), or for relocation from regional lockups including the Port Arthur prison en route to the main gaol, HM House of Correction on Campbell St. The "sober assessment" of these spaces and their functions, to use the term authors Freeman et al use for their preferred account from Stefan Petrow, dismisses the suggestion that the cells played any important role during the 1870s, and for special effect, the authors - drunk with laughter - ridicule the notion that the basement area might function as a present-day dark tourism attraction (pages 219-220).

The old Guard House, Macquarie St. Hobart (arches visible on the small building on corner)Also used as the Electric Telegraph Office ca. 1869 Image courtesy Mitchell Library SLNSW Ref: 302023r

Addenda: Prisoners in the Watch House April 1874
The records photographed here (at TAHO 2014) detailing rations supplied to prisoners held over in the cells at the MPO, Hobart Town Hall during a fortnight in April 1874 are the sorts of documents which have either been neglected or deliberately ignored by commentators on the history of the Municipal Police Office at the Hobart Town Hall, including those most recently discussed here in print - i.e. Freeman et al and Petrow (2016).

Four men and two women - six prisoners in all were listed on the Return of persons confined in the Watch house at the Municipal Police Station Hobart Town supplied with Rations during the week ending 11th April 1874. The two women wereEmma Cooper and Margaret Nicholson. No police mugshots of women prisoners of the 1870s apparently survive, if indeed they were photographed at all in that decade. The prisoners were: -

The following week ending April 18th, 1874, twelve new prisoners - six men and six women were being held in the MPO cells, listed in this Return of persons confined in the Watch house at the Municipal Police Station Hobart Town supplied with Rations during the week ending 18th April 1874. Some of these prisoners were repeat offenders whose photographs (if male), taken by Nevin, were already held in the Municipal Police Office at the Hobart Town Hall.

In total, these offenders were held in the Watch House of the Municipal Police Office during April 1874, tried next day, and in some cases, discharged with light sentences. See below, for example, the police gazette notices for John Moran, 27 yrs old, and Esther Saunders, 20 yrs old :

Photographs of Tasmanian "convicts" - i.e. prisoner mugshots - taken by T. J. Nevin in the 1870s were exhibited at the Centenary of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in 1976. The Exhibition Catalogue was written by Daniel Thomas, Senior Curator and Curator of Australian Art, Art Gallery of NSW. The Tasmanian contributor was antiquarian Geoffrey Stilwell, a Trustee of the Centenary Celebrations of the Art Gallery of NSW and Special Collections curator of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania.

Daniel Thomas AM, Emeritus Director Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, retired in 1990 and now lives in Tasmania. From 1958 he was the curator in charge of Australian art, and later chief curator, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. From 1978 to 1984 he was the inaugural head of Australian art at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Title page: "Australian art in the 1870s by Daniel Thomas. An exhibition to mark the centenary of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney: 25 June-2 August 1976; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: 28 October-21 November 1976"

Paragraph on T. J. Nevin and his photographs of "still-living transported convicts", p. 41 of the Exhibition Catalogue for Australian art in the 1870s : an exhibition to mark the centenary of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney by Daniel Thomas 1976.

TRANSCRIPT

T. J. NEVIN
A Hobart photographer who in 1874 made a set of over 40 photographs of still-living transported convicts. They are included as an example of the strong interest in Australian history which is characteristic of the 1870s. These small photographs are also examples of the standard "Carte-de-visite" size used for almost all portraits in the 1850s and 1860s, but going out of favour after 1870 for the larger "Cabinet" size , 4½ x 6½ inches. After 1875 "Panels". 8½ x 6½ inches also became common for family groups. Carte-de-visite and Cabinets of royalty, actresses, bishops, convicts and other celebrities were widely available and were collected in albums as well as portraits of one's own family.

The Mugshots
Working on government contract and as full-time civil servant, Thomas J. Nevin photographed many hundreds of Tasmanian prisoners - or "convicts" as they are termed in art history and heritage tourism discourse - between 1872 and 1886, and not just the set of forty (40) indicated in this brief Exhibition Catalogue note dated 1976. The author(s) were referring to the set of 40 prints from Nevin's glass negatives of prisoners arranged in three panels held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston. See this article - Thomas J. Nevin's glass plates of prisoners 1870s.

The originals of these forty (40) individual prints of Tasmanian prisoners, photographed at the Hobart Gaol by the commissioned photographer Thomas J. Nevin in the 1870s, were intended to be pasted to the criminal record sheet of each prisoner. It was customary to photograph a person before conviction and after it, and again on discharge, by order of the Tasmanian Attorney-General from 1872 onwards, and since the men whom Nevin photographed were repeat and habitual offenders, the same glass negative was used again and again. The plates were handled repeatedly to produce duplicates for distribution to regional prisons and police stations, and for the many administrative copies required by the central Municipal Police Office at the Town Hall, the Supreme Court and the Hobart Gaol.

The forty individuals whose police photographs from the 1870s were lined up in this manner and pasted to dark green cardboard were all chosen by convictaria collector John Watt Beattie in 1915 because they were repeat offenders convicted of serious crimes who had been arraigned in Supreme Court sessions in the 1870s and incarcerated at the Hobart Gaol, Campbell St. Beattie chose them because he wanted to sell their images to tourists at his convictaria museum located in Murray St. Hobart, and to include them in intercolonial exhibitions associated with the fake convict ship the Success. He falsely touted these men as representative of the pre-1853 convict transportation era, hence the labelling on each of these panels, “Types of Imperial Convicts” and "Photographed at Port Arthur", when the reality was far less fascinating. By the 1870s, these men were common criminals and “prisoners”, not "convicts" and they were photographed on sentencing at the Supreme Court Hobart and Hobart Gaol, a judicial process funded and administered by the Colonial government, not the British government.

Although the Exhibition Catalogue assumes it was Thomas Nevin in the 1874 who "made a set of over 40 photographs of still-living transported convicts", it was Beattie & Searle who collated the original prints which they removed from the prisoner rap sheets in the early 1900s and created these panels from Nevin's original first-captures on glass negatives of the 1870s. None of the forty prisoners featured in each of these three panels, however, was exhibited. Just three photographs from the QVMAG collections were selected for the Centenary Exhibition of the Art Gallery of NSW in 1976.

These three black and white copies (below) were made at the QVMAG in 1985 from Nevin's original sepia prints, and placed online in the early 2000s. The original 1870s prints of these black and white copies were exhibited at the AGNSW in 1976 (listed on page 27 in the Exhibition Catalogue). The curator chose these three photographs possibly because the full frontal pose and the frank stare captured more of the prisoner's "personality" than the conventional pose where the sitter's sightlines were deflected either left or right, the pose typical of Nevin's commercial studio practice and evident in the more than 200 (two hundred) prisoner cdvs held in the Beattie collection at the QVMAG. Not that the frontal frontal pose was uncommon in Nevin's practice: these two cartes-visite of young women, for example, are equally compelling for their full frontal stare at the camera and photographer.

On right and verso below right: Head and shoulders cdv on plain oval mount : A young woman [unidentified] with a chin dimple, wearing an elaborately frilled bodice, brooch on a ribbon wound round her neck and chain to the waist, hair curled in layers across the top of head, her stare dramatic, solemn and strongly directed at the photographer/camera. Studio portrait by Thomas J. Nevin ca, 1870-1875. Verso with the handwritten inscription in Samuel Clifford's orthography: "Clifford & Nevin Hobart Town". The original was taken by Thomas Nevin before 1876, and reprinted by Samuel Clifford until 1878, per his advertisement in The Mercury, 17th January 1876:

Mr T. J. Nevin's friends may depend that I will endeavour to satisfy them with any prints they may require from his negatives.
S. CLIFFORD

In addition, the three prints of prisoners exhibited at the Centenary of the AGNSW in 1976 were possibly chosen because they had escaped the rebranding on the versos with the inscription "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" for Beattie's tourism trade of the 1900s and for the 1938 QVMAG exhibition which commemorated his death and bequest to the people of Launceston. A year after the 1976 AGNSW Centenary Exhibition, in 1977, many more of these "convict portraits" by T. J. Nevin from the Beattie collection were exhibited at the QVMAG, curated by John McPhee.

The National Library of Australia's online catalogue notes for Daniel Thomas' AGNSW Centenary Exhibition Catalogue do not include the names of the individual artists whose works were shown in 1976. The State Library of Tasmania, however, lists T. J. Nevin's name along with other Tasmanian artists in their catalogue notes for the publication Australian art in the 1870s - available via Linc. The State Library of Tasmania's online entry also mentions which items came from G. T. Stilwell's private collection, viz:

Researchers are indebted to the late G.T. Stilwell for his creation of the Stilwell Index during his service at the State Library of Tasmania. G.T. Stilwell also published a short biography of Thomas Nevin with J. S. Kerr outlining the Town Hall dismissal and the misattribution by Chris Long of Nevin's convict portraiture to A.H. Boyd in The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870, edited by Joan Kerr. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press 1992).

Joan Kerr and Geoffrey Stilwell's entry on page 568 of The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 dismisses the claim made by Chris Long in the mid 1980s, published in 1995, that A.H. Boyd was the photographer of the cdvs known as the Port Arthur convict cartes, 1874, or that he was a photographer at all. They state:

Some of the seventy cartes-de-visite identification photographs of Port Arthur convicts taken in the 1870s (QVMAG) at about the time the settlement was closed (1876) have been attributed to Nevin because they carry his studio stamp. He possibly held the government contract for this sort of criminal recording work, although Long believes that he was merely a printer or copyist and suggests that the most probable photographer was the commandant A.H. Boyd. However, professional photographers were employed to take identification photographs in Australian prisons from the beginning of the 1870s (see Charles Nettleton) and while a collection of standard portrait photographs and hand-coloured cartes-de-visite undoubtedly by Nevin is in the Archives Office of Tasmania no photographs by Boyd are known.
Information: J.S. Kerr, G.T. Stilwell

The G. T. Stilwell Private Collection Auction 2015
This oil on canvas of a native bird with mountain berries and native flora with Mount Wellington in the background was painted by Florence Williams ca. 1873. It was estimated to sell for $6,000 - $10,000. The price realized, including buyer's premium, was $93,000.

Description: Florence Williams. (British / Australia 1833 – 1915)
A native bird with mountain berries and native flora, backed by Mount Wellington oil on canvas
Signed with initials FW
Original gilt frame, the image 59.8 x 45.2cm.
Florence Williams was born in the UK and exhibited at the Royal Academy. Williams moved to Australia in 1863 and lived in New Town, Tasmania from 1873 – 1875, during which this work would have been painted.
Provenance: W.N. Hurst Hobart,
The Sale of Michael Sharland. 1987. Michael Sharland (Tasmanian. 1899 – 1987) wrote as “Peregrine” for the Sydney Morning Herald and Hobart Mercury. Sharland was a passionate environmentalist for the built and natural environment, author and ornithologist. He was the author of nine volumes concerning Tasmanian bird and wildlife, as well as the definitive “A Guide to the Birds of Tasmania” and the architectural classic “Stones of a Century”. He was Superintendent of Scenic Reserves from 1947 and The Scenery Preservation Board (later formed as Parks and Wildlife Service).

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In his own words ...

“I hope that you have not got it in your mind that I am implicated with the ghost“.The Mercury, 4 December 1880

"Defendant said that he was the father of a large number of children, and did not know which one was referred to. (Laughter.)"The Mercury, 11 August 1886

"Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision."The Mercury, 19 July 1888.

Biography: Professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

Recent Posts

Our Fourteenth Anniversary 2019

Fourteen years ago (before 2005 actually) we started blogging about Tasmanian photographer Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923). We look forward to another two years at least as the project draws closer to completion. Contributions and donations are most welcome, and many thanks for your involvement.

Notices

DISCLAIMER: We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

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